United States v. Tutt, No. 13-cr-20396, 2013 WL 5707791 (E.D. Mich. Oct. 21, 2013) In this case, the court granted in part Defendant’s Motion for Issuance of a Subpoena Duces Tecum seeking production of the arresting officers’ personnel files and disciplinary records as well as the metadata associated with an arresting officer’s police report. Defendant… Continue Reading

Plaintiff sought an ex parte temporary restraining order requiring Defendants to disable their website and remove information related to allegedly infringing software and also sought to create a forensic image of one defendant’s hard drive(s) to ensure preservation. The court granted Plaintiff’s application, relying in part on Defendants’ self-identification as hackers. Upon learning the at-issue source code had already been released, however, the court denied Plaintiff’s motion for a preliminary injunction and partially dissolved the TRO, but continued to retain images of the hard drives.

In this case, the court found that the duty to preserve arose after the at-issue information was destroyed in accordance with Defendant’s document retention policies and that an adverse inference was not warranted. Considering the proper standard to employ when assessing when the duty to preserve is triggered, the court concluded that “the duty to preserve is triggered only when a litigant knew or should have known that litigation was imminent (at least in the Seventh Circuit).”

The judges of the United States District Court for the Eastern District of Michigan have announced the approval, “on a pilot period basis,” of a Model Order Relating to the Discovery of Electronically Stored Information and a Rule 26(f) meet and confer checklist. “It is within the judicial officer’s discretion whether these materials may be… Continue Reading

Plaintiff sought sanctions for Defendants’ allegedly intentional spoliation of evidence and argued that prejudice could be presumed. The Magistrate Judge declined to do so and also found that Defendants’ spoliation was merely negligent. Thus, absent a showing of actual prejudice, the Magistrate Judge recommended that Plaintiff’s motion be denied.

Relying on the “all-to-often [sic] ignored discovery principle” of proportionality the court declined to compel Plaintiff “to go to great lengths” to produce information that the defendants could “do without.”

Previously in this case, the Magistrate Judge declined to impose spoliation sanctions for Plaintiff’s deletion of emails and other ESI belonging to two important custodians absent a showing that the defendants were prejudiced by the destruction. Upon Defendants’ objections, the district court reversed the denial of sanctions and imposed an adverse inference and monetary sanctions. In doing so, the court reasoned that prejudice was presumed because the evidence was destroyed intentionally and explained that no showing of malice was required.

Lazette v. Kulmatycki, —F. Supp. 2d—, 2013 WL 2455937 (N.D. Ohio June 5, 2013) When Plaintiff’s employment ended and she returned her company-issued Blackberry, she believed that she had deleted her personal email account. She was mistaken. Thereafter, her former supervisor, without her knowledge or authorization, proceeded to access and read her personal emails—48,000 of them—during… Continue Reading

Plaintiff sued its former employees after they opened a competing sports training facility. In the course of litigation, Plaintiff sought sanctions for Defendants’ alleged spoliation of ESI, including text messages. The trial court found that “the level of importance and complexity of the issues did not weigh in favor of imposing sanctions and that the deleted material was not relevant or important to its decision” and dismissed the claim for sanctions. On appeal, the appellate court found no abuse of discretion and affirmed the order.

In this case, the court considered Plaintiff’s “at least” negligent deletion of “the entire active email folder of an important witness–perhaps the key witness–at a time when [it] obviously knew that it might commence a lawsuit,” but declined to impose the requested adverse inference–or any sanction–absent a sufficient showing that “relevant information potentially helpful to [the defendants] [wa]s no longer available.”

Here, the Second Circuit addressed the difference between an adverse inference instruction as a sanction and an instruction “that simply explains to the jurors inferences they are free to draw in considering circumstantial evidence” and determined that the at-issue instruction was not a sanction and that the trial court did not err. The instruction permitted jurors to infer that an unproduced photograph was unfavorable to Plaintiffs, provided they believed that the photograph was in the plaintiffs’ possession and that the non-production was not satisfactorily explained.

In this case, the court conducted a “traditional relevance analysis” to assess Defendant’s request for broad access to Plaintiff’s social networking accounts and concluded that only limited discovery was appropriate. Specifically, the court concluded that “unfettered access to Plaintiff’s social networking history will not be permitted simply because Plaintiff has a claim for emotional distress damages.” Thus, the court ordered Plaintiff’s counsel to review Plaintiff’s postings and to produce those determined to be relevant, “keeping in mind the broad scope of discovery contemplated under Rule 26.”

In this case, a Special Master was directed to obtain ESI (more than one million documents) from a bankruptcy trustee, to review it for privilege, and to prepare a privilege log. The documents were screened utilizing keyword search terms. Upon production of the resulting privilege log, Defendants objected that the terms used were overly broad and that the log contained non-privileged documents. The Special Master therefore conducted an analysis of the terms used and made recommendations to address the objection.

Gordon v. Kaleida Health, No. 08-CV-378S(F), 2013 WL 2250579 (W.D.N.Y. May 21, 2013) In this case, the court considered Plaintiffs’ motion “to compel Defendants to meet and confer with respect to establishing an agreed protocol for implementing the use of predictive coding software” and for an order that if the parties could not agree on… Continue Reading

In this case, the court granted Plaintiff’s motion for an adverse inference instruction where Defendant failed to prevent the automatic deletion of relevant data despite notice of impending litigation and receipt of a specific preservation notice, sent directly to Defendant’s general counsel.

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